This is totally ahistorical. Regional newspapers would “break” stories that would then get picked up by national outlets.
In that system it was the standard to reference the paper that first reported the story.
People understandably have a hard time conceptualizing a highly dynamic and diverse news media landscape these days, but back when it was working like it was supposed to —- before Clinton-era reforms destroyed the laws protecting against consolidation -— it was not as simple to suppress a story because you had actual competition who would profit if you didn’t.
In other words, news wasn’t always so distinctly “entertainment” and the rules which govern news items in a landscape of less than a handful of media conglomerates are nothing like what used to govern in a less starkly dystopian version of the same.